Vietnam Reduces Dissidents’ Terms

HANOI, Vietnam — A Vietnamese appeals court has overturned one dissident’s six-year prison sentence and halved the term of another in a rare show of leniency by the country’s Communist authorities.

The decision followed meetings last month between President Obama and President Truong Tan Sang of Vietnam. Mr. Obama pressed Vietnam to take concrete steps to improve its human rights record, a major sticking point in relations between the two countries.

The first dissident, Nguyen Phuong Uyen, 21, was convicted of violating national security laws in May for distributing leaflets critical of the Communist Party, and sentenced to six years. The appeals court on Friday revised her punishment to a three-year suspended sentence and released her. The other dissident, Dinh Nguyen Kha, 25, was given four years in prison instead of eight.

Nguyen Thanh Luong, a lawyer who was in the court, said Saturday that the judges had cited the young ages of the defendants in the decision.

He said he believed it was the first time an appeals court here had freed someone convicted of a national security crime. “This is a positive sign,” Mr. Luong said, “and this should be encouraged.”